Undoing damage

Although I appreciate the NY Times retraction/explanation/backtracking (and subsequent explanations by other papers), I have to seriously question its worth. At this point, other than trying to re-establish their own credibilty as a news source, what good is it going to do? If people based their support for the war on these articles, how can the NYT and those other papers ever repair the harm their inadequate, sloppy, and careless journalism caused?

My favorite quote of late has been from Peter Parker's Uncle Ben "With great power comes great responsibilty." I wonder if these media organizations truly realize the incredible amount of power and influence they have - not only over what people buy, but over what people actually think and the decisions they make. They obviously realize this on some level (hence the birth of advertising) but I wonder if it's hit home yet - that the media was one of the biggest participants/collaboraters in the rush to invade Iraq (and possibly Afghanistan).

The lack of true journalistic endeavor with regard to seriously investigating these stories has become apparent and I'm curious if they realize now that they helped precipitate the deaths of thousands of people, the rise of global mistrust and antagonism towards the US, the increase in terrorist recruits, and the rest of the growing list of negative repercussions from the war. I wouldn't want to be anyone on the NYT staff who worked on those articles...